Henry squared his jaw. Cole was solid before him. Was he really pushing this man? The alternative – waiting for vampires to break in and eat him – kept him strong. He sat.
‘I can’t let you go out there.’
His back was to the door. Moving him would be a real pain now. They had to figure out a way to keep Henry safe; he couldn’t have Cole out wandering about. What if he went through with his plan to blow up Lucy’s house? Cole reached down for him.
Something thumped the outside of the door, vibrating it in its frame right into Henry’s back. His feet found him quickly. Cole’s whole demeanour had changed.
‘Clear of the door, back up.’ Cole moved precisely around the room, checking the window by the kitchen. The door thumped methodically again. Someone was definitely knocking.
Cole pointed. ‘Get into the bedroom, on the left.’ Henry was not going to argue.
The room was colder than the rest of the flat, the chill air sliding off his nervous warmth. Cole’s gruff voice carried easily.
‘What do you want?’ If only Henry could see what was going on. The reply was male, but too muffled for him to make out.
‘Hang on.’ The sound of a latch rattling set Henry’s heart pounding. Not that he doubted the competence of Lumbering-Beast-Man, but shouldn’t they have holed up and never talked to another living person ever again? The rattling of chains and locks continued for some time. ‘Hang on, brother, just got to make sure nothing sticks you on the way in.’
Cole had nothing to stick anyone with on the way in – he’d been clear about that when going over the flat’s security. Apparently, he didn’t want his brother knowing that? Stood to reason Cole would have a weird family.
‘Right, come on then, what do the bas—’ Cole’s voice cut off.
‘Actually, we’re here about the other thing.’ Presumably, this was his brother. ‘Where is it? The body?’
Silence dragged on – what was happening out there? Maybe he should risk a peek? But curiosity might kill the Henry.
‘His fear is so strong.’ A second voice. ‘Delicious.’
There was a pause, then the brother’s voice. ‘I can smell it; it’s here.’ There was an unsavoury note, something hard to quantify, in the tone.
The second voice sounded urgent. ‘What if he breaks free? The armigers are always the most resistant!’
There was a growl, and the first voice hissed. ‘Shut up, your prey talk makes you weak. Look at him, the Boss was right. Pathetic. Now check the rooms, while I babysit Captain Catatonia here.’
Fuck, fuck. This wasn’t a family brother – at least, Henry hoped not, for Cole’s sake. The room was spartan. Who lived like this? A queen-sized double, some drawers, a lot of whisky and shotgun shells. There was a long, curving knife on the chest of drawers. He grabbed it and waited behind the door. His breath ran away from him. They’d hear him. His heart thumped like a washing machine hitting the floor.
He had a second to contemplate the very odd nature of the things he could remember – washing machine? – before terror really set in and froze his limbs, rooting him to the spot. What had they done to Cole? Why did they call him Captain Catatonia? The noise of searching started. Why wasn’t Cole fighting? Was he just all mouth?
A door banged. No way. Cole had all the tools – the aggressive knife, the shotgun. He’d know how to use them, wouldn’t he? The sound of searching was coming Henry’s way. What was he going to do? He could stab them in the back and run. Should he stab their heads, or their backs? He might just really piss them off by stabbing their heads, but what did he know?
Help, Cole, please, what the fuck, man? Steps approached; his heart thumped like it might escape. He didn’t think the front door had been shut. Please God, let the door be open. Each of Henry’s senses was stretched to a knife edge as he waited, holding the curved blade poised. There was a strange snuffling noise outside the door, like someone sniffing.
‘It’s here, and it’s fresh.’ Was Henry the ‘it’ they were talking about? There was a leer about the sniffing stranger’s words. The door he was hiding behind creaked open. He raised the knife ready to stab it down. His ribs ached, filled with held breath. There was only Henry and the blade and the sniffer in the whole world.
The door flew into him. He saw it a moment before it knocked the wind out of him, his knuckles grazing his head. He tried to push back, but his feet were unable to get him balanced again, his body seeming impossibly heavy. The pressure from the door vanished as it swung away, and he waited for pain, sliding down to sit. ‘Please don’t hurt me.’
He cringed, peering up at the man. He looked wrong. Henry’s mind slid off the man’s face. His clothes looked like military fatigues, but Henry couldn’t bring the man’s features into focus.
‘It’s alive!’
A guttural roar went up from outside the room in response. Henry was going to wish he wasn’t alive – that was what that roar said.
The blade wavered in his outstretched hand.
‘And it brought cutlery.’ The man snatched the knife from Henry’s hand in a blur of speed. Henry’s brain said one word over and over. Vampire. Must be. Cole had told him about vampires; they were too fast to be human. The soldier’s arm grabbed him, hauling him to his feet like he was a gym bag and holding him upright in an iron grip. What did they want?
‘Please, I don’t know anything; I can’t remember anything! Please, just leave me be. I won’t tell anyone anything; I don’t know anything!’
The man ignored him and carried him out into the hall. The owner of the first voice – Cole’s anti-brother – had a gun. Solid and metal and black and real. Henry couldn’t take his eyes off it. It was pointed at Cole who was stiff on the floor, white as Scottish sunlight, his eyes vacant, glassy and full of pain.
‘What did you do to him?’
The man put his gun away. ‘Your armiger’s a scared little bitch. And a lying little bitch, letting you live.’
His companion snorted with a relish that flipped Henry’s stomach.
‘What do you want? What are you going to do to me?’
The men’s grins were wrong. Something out of proportion about their faces made his mind recoil, like seeing a Russian doll stacked inside out.
‘We’re having you for dinner, Henry.’ The men’s grins widened as his realisation must have dawned on his face.
‘Yes, Henry, we haven’t had fresh meat from the whole pig for a while. Our choice of cut.’ The last word was drawn over Henry’s ears in an agony of fresh hells. They were going to eat him, like a pig, cut his body up. He tried to sit down but the one holding him upright was so much more powerful than he was.
Cole lay on the floor. His breathing was shallow and rapid as he stared ahead of him with wild, empty eyes. His arms were up, his legs drawn in, twitching in a warding defence as if he were being kicked by invisible legs. Henry screamed, ‘Cole, please, help me! Don’t let them eat me!’
Cole snapped to, the frozen, scrambling movements of moments before gone. His eyes focused. He bellowed, ‘Leave her alone!’ He was on his feet and barrelling forward. Surely, Cole knew Henry was a man? The next few moments disappeared in a tumble as Henry was thrown. He hit the solid stone wall hard, sparks flying when wall met skull.
Growls and noises not fit for human beings erupted. He had been thrown in with the lions. There were grunts and yelps. His vison cleared. Cole was a blur of fury. His face was unrecognisable, coated with bright red arterial spray. The thing – it was now plainly visible as a thing – that had thrown Henry was on the floor, yelping piteously, its ugly face contorting.
It was animal, its features blended human with fur and feathers. Somehow, he knew its face had looked like that the whole time; he just hadn’t been able to see it before. The sound of cracking bone pulled his attention up to the fight.
Cole moved like a boxer, weaving around, arms flashing in and out, too fast to follow. This was what it looked like when people went to murder each oth
er, Henry knew instantly. The other thing flashed fangs at Cole, its hairy, muscled forearms slick with blood as it slashed at Cole with long claws.
Cole rolled, taking the hit. It looked like the creature’s swipe could halve a tree trunk, but Cole came up, somehow standing.
The thing pressed, backing Cole into a corner. Cole’s knives flashed over and over, slicing into the creature’s forearms and splashing rivers of blood onto his floor mats in a blur of ceaseless motion.
Still, Cole was driven back into the corner. Corners were bad. Henry didn’t need to be able to fight to see that. He wanted to move, to help, but his limbs were boneless, his skull shocked.
The hulking creature pressing forward was winning. Its back was covered in thick fur and huge muscle, like a gorilla, and it had the head of a huge wolf.
What was Henry going to do about something like that? The gorilla-wolf howled. Henry would be next; the gorilla-wolf would eat him. Would Henry be alive while he was eaten?
Cole’s face was a thing from hell. Blood-red and maniacal. He fought, gouged, headbutted and threw himself into the oncoming beast, but the creature was stone.
Its balled fist struck out, and for the first time, hit home with an audible crunch. Cole’s head snapped back against the wall; his body crumpled. Hope shrivelled and died.
A throaty growl erupted from the gorilla-wolf. It sounded like a laugh dragged from the throat of a dog. It paused, its stance dripping with anticipation.
Cole banged his fist on the floor, his face unrecognisable still, but the gesture furious.
And the ground swallowed Henry whole. He was pulled down through fresh dirt, cold with moisture which clung to his nostrils. Beneath the earth, a thousand tiny creatures crawled over his skin. He was sinking deep, shuddering with the cold, his skin becoming permeable, so the worms and centipedes invaded him freely.
The world vanished in a wash of black, his musculature and bone scraping rock. The sound of tonnes of earth being moved was the roar of a tsunami as something came toward him.
The tide of moving earth broke over him, and he was back on the cold floor of Cole’s flat, his lungs inhaling gulps of soilless air. Some new demon was in the room with him, inside Cole. The gorilla pounded its fists in, but the Cole-demon had sheets of something black and sharp across his forearms.
Their sharp edges punished the gorilla-wolf’s assault. Gorilla-wolf turned and made for the door.
Cole was on its back in a moment, plunging his blades in. The knives elongated. They were smoky, oily and black as they burst out of the creature’s chest. Henry suddenly realised he was now food for everything in the room.
His saviour, Cole, wasn’t one of those animal-men; he was something worse. This new world Henry had woken up in was surely hell. Cole’s size had swollen with shadow. The gorilla-wolf’s too-human cries of pain were hollowing as Cole’s long, black knives twisted in its body.
A subhuman, ecstatic look warped Cole’s face when he withdrew the blades and plunged them in again, deep into the creature’s back, by its spine. Blood, visceral red, pumped onto Cole’s mats as life voided from the gorilla-wolf’s body.
That thing would have eaten Henry, but any sense of relief was lost in the horror of violence as Cole cut down its torso, into its abdomen, then pulled out its spine. The creature’s whining stopped abruptly.
Henry threw up. The other animal-man, not far from Henry, began to drag itself away. It wasn’t a bad idea – maybe Henry could crawl to the front door? The Cole-demon seemed to notice Henry’s movements and came toward him.
‘Oh God, no, please. I’m human, remember! I’m human!’
Cole’s wild eyes focused on Henry. His movements were slow. ‘Shhh.’ Henry froze. His inner caveman hoped being still might make the threat pass by. Cole – or whatever he was – came on.
‘It’s okay, Henry, you’re safe now; they can’t hurt you.’
It wasn’t them Henry was worried about. ‘I don’t feel safe.’
The demon wavered, and suddenly, it was Cole, the man, looking down.
‘I’m sorry you had to experience that Henry. It’s called an aura. It happens when I use magic.’
Was that shame hiding under all that blood and gore? The other creature was dragging itself up the hallway. Had to do what it had to do, Henry supposed.
‘You didn’t tell me you weren’t human.’
Something flashed in Cole’s stance, curling Henry’s feet further into him as he balled up for protection.
‘Henry, I’m human, like you. I can explain, pal, but I’m human alright.’ Cole pulled deep from his flask of whisky.
Sure, Cole thought he was human – that was nice for him. Cole reached out, very slowly, mumbling soothingly like it was Henry who was the wild beast. His hands were gentle as he felt the back of Henry’s skull. Henry didn’t move a muscle, not a twitch.
‘Your head’s not fractured, I don’t think. Can you move?’
Hopefully fast and soon, and preferably toward the door. He tried his limbs – they were working. How much damage had been done? Could he escape? His skull throbbed like it was a balloon inflating and deflating; his ribs hurt, and his back.
‘Come on, let’s get you to the sofa.’ Cole – he was fully himself now, there was no ghost of that demon in him – helped Henry, supporting him carefully. The world tilted as he almost fell, but Cole got him to the couch.
‘Thanks.’ They were both pals, no need for Cole to go monster on Henry. The animal-man had hauled itself into the bedroom where Henry had been hiding. A slime of blood marked its progress. Cole became the centre of Henry’s world. The most dangerous man in the room – in any room. Henry’s caveman watched, ready to curl up and lose a tail if it had to.
Cole went to the fridge. Something studied, precise and contained about the man’s movements telegraphed what was now bleeding obvious to Henry. He was a killer, and a good one. The killer returned with some ice cubes wrapped in a dishcloth – surprisingly clean– and a beer.
He ignored the blood on the bottle and took the beer. It built trust.
‘Take it easy, Henry, you’re probably concussed.’
There was a pause full of awkwardness. Something in Cole’s eyes was shadowed as he gestured uncertainly to the hall and scratched his head.
‘I’m going to, eh, look after our guest.’
Henry nodded; psycho talking.
‘There might be, well, there will be …’ The man in front of him, coated in blood, managed to look like a ten-year-old boy asking for his football back.
‘Noise?’
Cole nodded and looked grateful. ‘Yeah. Sorry about this, it’s not a great start.’ The cold ice in the compress was soothing as he pressed it to his throbbing temple. He’d better throw Lumbering-Beast-Man a bone.
‘No, not the best, but that’s okay.’
Cole rubbed his palm through his hair. ‘I could have bought you dinner first, eh?’
Yes, chuckle along; caveman Henry approved.
Cole retrieved the curved dagger Henry had dropped earlier. ‘Here.’ He extended it, handle first, smooth and heavy and real. Henry grasped it like it was some sort of lifeline. All the better to stab beast-men with, if they got frisky. Cole pointed at the weapon. ‘I’ll teach you how to use it if you like.’
That sounded like Henry had a future beyond the next five minutes but tell that to his heart and trembling fingers.
Cole continued. ‘The thing in the bedroom? It’s called a Cipactli. They’re part animal, part man.’ Of course they are. ‘They’re native to New Mexico. They’ve no business being here; they’ve got no licence here. They eat animals to gain some of their power. They eat people to get more life. They’re evil, plain and simple, and I—’
The flash of warring emotions on Cole’s face was made ludicrous by the blood mask hiding his humanity. ‘I’ve not seen one in a very long time, Henry. But the last time I did? They’re evil. Plain and simple. And the one in there has friends, and they wa
nt to eat you. They were looking for you.’
The compress couldn’t soothe Henry’s rattled mind. Maybe it could be numbed. Henry had to know that if those things came back, Cole could deal with them. He’d worry about dealing with Cole later.
‘Yeah, no shit. What happened to you, man?’
Cole shrunk, his eyes suddenly very dark. ‘I’m sorry about that.’ He ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck. A crash sounded from next door, and he strode in its direction. ‘I’ll need to get information from the Cipactli; we need to know where the rest of them are.’
The beer was cool to taste. It probably wasn’t a good idea, but he needed something to stop his brain imploding. The thump and whine from the other room was relentless. Cole’s questions, cold and staccato, drilled Henry’s skull through the bedroom door, while the Cipactli whined like a dog being beaten.
It was hard to take stock. He sat feet away from a shredded lump that he found difficult not to think of as a person. Whatever was inside Cole – the demon – was unnaturally hideous. If Cole was human, Henry didn’t want to be human. He should leave, but Cole said there were more of those Cipactli out there.
A shriek pierced the air and was muffled by the door; the concealment of the creature’s suffering made it feel illicit. He felt sick. The beer didn’t help, but his throat was parched, and the sink was a million metres away. He couldn’t stay, but he couldn’t go. He was stuck.
The thing next door rasped in an animal-talking kind of way. Could everybody in this nightmare change their shape? Was that normal? Maybe he was one of those things too? He doubted it. He’d feel it; he’d know it. Same way he knew how to work a toaster or that the boiling point of water was one hundred degrees. His memories were gone, but a lot of what he knew was still there.
There was a crack –the worst noise Henry had ever heard, full of finality – then silence. Cole strode from the bedroom, avoiding eye contact, rubbing the back of his neck.
‘There’s two more in a van out there; they’ll be coming in any minute.’ The list of the worst things Henry had ever heard was expanding exponentially. ‘It’s okay, Henry. Stay here. I’m going to take care of it.’ Cole had his shotgun back in hand and was loading it with shells he took from his jacket. ‘Don’t leave, don’t answer the door.’ Cole paused on his way to the hall. ‘I’m going out the back. Look kid, I know you’re afraid of me. I get it. But I promise I’m on your side. If I don’t fix this, they’ll kill you. And that’s if you’re lucky.’
The Cost of Magic (The Ethan Cole Series Book 1) Page 13